Using his own likeness has gotten Cam’ron into a legal battle.
Billboard reports that the Harlem rapper has been hit with a copyright lawsuit for allegedly using the popular 2003 photo of himself in his pink mink coat on Dipset merchandise without clearing it with the photographer, Djamilla Cochran.
On April 11, the outlet details that Cochran filed a complaint that Cam’ron used the photo on numerous Dipset products including shower curtains, pillows, swimsuits, and socks. What’s more, he is said to have been promoting the products on Instagram for years.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, Cam’ron was reportedly notified multiple times that he wasn’t authorized to use the photo of himself.
“Getty Images notified defendants of their infringing activities by mail and email on multiple occasions,” Cochran’s lawyers wrote, per the outlet. “Despite those notifications, defendants continued to sell merchandise and continued to display the photograph on website and accounts.”
According to the outlet, Cam’ron’s failure to stop using the image after being alerted on more than one occasion “could leave him facing more substantial damages.”
The copyright lawsuit against Cam’ron is similar to faced by another fellow New York rapper. As previously reported by AfroTech, Hip-Hop photographer Al Pereira filed a lawsuit against Nas for posting a photo of himself, Tupac, and Redman from July 1993 to his Instagram. Nas posted the photo in 2020, which is three years after Pereira registered the copyright.
In addition, the photographer claimed that the Instagram post took away from the value of his work and that Nas was “profiting from the work” while “using it to increase his social media status.”
According to the Professional Photographers of America’s website, an addendum to the copyright law was added in 1988 that protects photographers from having their work stolen. Plus, they’re the only ones who have the right to do whatever they choose with their work.
